the mystical theology of valentin weigel - DataSpace at Princeton ...

enlightens all great thinkers in every era rather than a single point at which wisdom was
finally revealed in Christ and the Church he founded.
Knowledge in all its forms is what Crollius is after, and for him knowledge of Self,
of God and of Nature are all identical, or at least have the same source. Like Weigel,
Crollius believes that “alle natürliche un[d] ubernatürliche Güter zuvor in uns: Gleich wie
aber derselbige Göttliche Character durch die Sünde in uns verfinstert wirdt, also scheinet
und leuchtet er hernach, nach dem die Sünde außgetilget..die Erkanntnuß aller Dinge ist
mit uns zugleich erschaffen, und ligt alles gleichsamb in dem Marck unsers Geistes
verborgen, und wirdt demnach nichts mehr erfordert, als daß wir uns von dem Schlaff
auffmuntern, darinn wir durch die Sünde gerathen, die uns von GOtt verliehene Gaben
nicht achten, und also weder sehen, empfinden oder glauben, daß solche Gaben unnd
Güter albereit in uns zugegen.” 525 Far from created things obscuring knowledge of God,
the diligent study of Nature will reveal God—a thought that Crollius attributes to
Dionysius: “Dionysius aber sagt, wir können Gott nicht auß seiner Natur sondern auß
aller Creaturen ordentlichen Disposition, in deren er sie erschaffen, und welche die
Bildtnussen unnd Gleichheiten seiner Göttlichen Exemplar vorstellen, am allerbesten
erkennen.” 526 From Dionysius’ understanding of the double-edged value of God’s names
Crollius takes away the idea that Dionysius teaches how to read the book of nature via an
analysis of the book of grace. 527 Both teach, as Crollius writes, that “unser Gemüth zu
GOtt, unnd unsere Augen zu der Warheit würden erhoben, wie gleichfalls auch zu der
525 Crollius, Basilica, 26.
526 Ibid.
527 “To the Paracelsian enthusiast, with his innate distrust for the written texts of men, the Book of Nature
was not a book like an other: it was the book, the companion to the only other book which mattered, the
Book of Scriptures. In addition, neither of these two books was an open text of words to be read and
cursorily analyzed; they were books of signs whose hidden meanings were to be interpreted....its text was
not a discourse of words...but a codex of secret signs whose interpretation must be guided by the light from
within and without.” Hannaway, 61.
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